OK, how many of you out there prefer using a touch-screen keyboard instead of a full-size keyboard with keys that move? Anyone? The only example I can think of where touch is preferable to moving keys is a high-performance morse code electronic keyer.

Regarding babies and touch pads, I will tell about my baby daughter's first experience with computers. This was in a common terminal room. To log into the computer, you had to press control-C to get the login prompt. If you pressed anything else, the terminal would beep. Baby thought this was great and banged away -- beep beep beep beepity beepity beep beep.

@Betajet: OK, how many of you out there prefer using a touch-screen keyboard instead of a full-size keyboard with keys that move?

I'll give you that -- I can limp along with my iPad keyboard, but a real keyboard is way preferable -- on th eother hand, I thin kit only fair to point out tha tmy wife can type at an incredible rate using her iPad on-screen keypad.

Similarly, I prefer a mouse for a lot of things -- but I love using a touchscreen for things like pan and zoom. At work my main system is a tower computer driving three 28" monitors forming a large virtual screen -- I have a keyboard and mouse in front of each screen and a curved desk and a chair that swivels, so I can easily transition from screen to screen.

I love my setup, but it would be even better if my screens had touch capability...

What about the ergonomics of your fingers hitting the glass all the time? OK, now that mobile is "hot", I guess ergonomics don't matter.

BTW, there is interesting work being done (by TI (piezos), Redux (bending waves), etc) using haptics to mimic the feel of physical buttons. Although I don't think these products would solve my ergonomic concerns about fingers drumming on a hard surface, I'm curious about how well they can mimic the feel of a real button. TI does have a dev kit available, but it's aways down on my to-buy list.

Cherry blues are awesome, although a little noisy. Sometime I'll get a buckling spirng keyboard.

Hmm...my primary keyboard is a CoolerMaster Storm QuickFire TK with Cherry Blues, my secondary keyboards are all Unicomp or Lenovo, and my laptop is a Thinkpad...

Touchscreens are great for certain applications, such as portable devices you can pick up and hold in your hands. They don't work well in many other applications, such as desktop computers, and cars (I don't want to messing with a touchscreen while I'm driving).

As they (Dow Corning glass) point out, we're not that far off what they portray. Not a lot of technical detail, and I think their comments about open operating systems are a bit optimistic. but fun to watch. Anyone who knows more about thees technologies got any comments on them?